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Featured Singles

Green Sage Page — Tue, 23 Feb 2010 15:47:00 GMT

Poetry

Green Sage Page — Fri, 19 Feb 2010 16:58:00 GMT

Twilight
Copyright May 13, 2008
By Cheryl Lavon Hughey

In the twilight before dawn,
The world glistens anew.

The babes sleep at their mother’s breast,
As darkness releases its hue.

In the twilight before dawn,
Dreams fade like a kiss.

Prisoner or guard?
I have no clue.

In the twilight before dawn,
I think only of you.

New Music Featured in Our Sidebar

Green Sage Page — Fri, 19 Feb 2010 16:54:00 GMT

Be sure to check the new ReverbNation music player on our sidebar for new indie music.

Tofu for Breakfast?

Green Sage Page — Thu, 04 Feb 2010 23:45:00 GMT

One of my favorite things to do is take traditional American food and morph it into healthy, vegetarian fare. One of the hardest lessons for me to learn was how to flavor tofu recipes. Being a solo vegetarian in a house of carnivores, I didn't have anyone to teach me how to season it properly. After a lot of trial and error, I eventually learned to dress it simply and enjoy the chameleon-like characteristics of this healthy vegan staple.

Pictured to the right is my version of "scrambled eggs" that is made out of crumbled tofu. The turmeric adds the familiar yellow texture, while the herbs add just a hint of flavor. I make my own tofu, as it tends to be much creamier than what is found in the refrigerator section of the store. Any type of regular tofu (not silken) should work, as it isn't important for the mock "eggs" to hold any sort of shape.

Mock Scrambled Eggs

Ingredients:
tofu
fines herbes
turmeric
paprika
salt
olive oil

Lightly coat a non-stick pan with olive oil. Crumble up a small block of tofu. Generously sprinkle with fines herbes. Then, lightly sprinkle with turmeric, paprika and salt to taste. Gentle stir and heat until warm. Do not overcook, as you want the light texture of eggs. Serve hot.

My other favorite thing to do when cooking tofu for breakfast is simply to lightly brown a few sesame seeds in a non-stick pan in olive oil with a little fresh garlic and/or ginger. Add in the tofu and cook until the tofu is lightly brown. At the very end, sprinkle in enough soy sauce to lightly coat the mixture while it sizzles in the pan. The soy sauce will carmelize and add wonderful flavor to the tofu. Just be sure not to use too much or the result will be very salty. You might even opt to try a low salt soy sauce.

Questions? Write editor@greensagepage.com.

Copyright Cheryl Hughey 2009

Janiece Jaffe/Monika Herzig & Friends and ArtsWeek Presents: Nature Songs & All That Jazz

Green Sage Page — Wed, 03 Feb 2010 20:46:00 GMT

-Sunday, February 21, 2010, 2pm, Monroe County Public Library Auditorium, Free -

BLOOMINGTON, IN –– Bloomington’s Elementary Schools host a wealth of poets who love and believe in Nature. More than 200 children responded to a call-out for submissions of poems about the environment. Their themes range from the seasons to animals to recycling and enjoying nature’s beauty. The expressions are haunting, funny, and call us to action. On Sunday, February 21 starting at 2pm in the Monroe County Library Auditorium, some of the poems will come alive through readings and in songs composed by Bloomington’s jazz musicians Janiece Jaffe and Monika Herzig with words by the young authors. Performing with them will be Tom Clark (saxes), Peter Kienle (bass), Dan Deckard (drums), Curtis Cantwell Jackson (voice), and readings by favorite storyteller Arbutus Cunningham. All of the poems will be available to read. The program is supported by a grant from Arts Week and free to the public. Everyone is invited to meet the authors during a reception following the concert.

About the artists:
Janiece Jaffe, vocalist and vocal coach has nine CDs to her credit and has performed in premier jazz clubs and festivals nationally and internationally. She has sung with Bobby McFerrin, Buster Williams, Slide Hampton, Freddie Hubbard, Bennie Maupin, Dominic Spera, and many other Hoosier musicians. Currently she sings with more than 7 different bands including the Stardusters Jazz Orchestra, Women in Jazz and duos with Curtis Cantwell Jackson. She offers singing workshops and ‘Sounding Light’ concerts. More info at www.janiecejaffe.com New website coming!

Monika Herzig, pianist, is an Owl Studios Recording Artist and her extensive touring schedule includes stops from Alabama to Japan. Her groups have opened for acts such as Sting, Tower of Power, and Yes, and her music has been featured in USA Today. She is also a faculty member of the IU Arts Administration Program and current president of Jazz from Bloomington. More info at www.monikaherzig.com.

About ArtsWeek 2010:
ArtsWeek, an Indiana University-Bloomington community winter arts festival, is hosting its 26th annual celebration from February 18 – 28, 2010. ArtsWeek brings the city’s many arts organizations together with performers and artists from the Bloomington campus for new events, enhanced performances, and presentations of new works. The theme for ArtsWeek 2010, “Art and the Environment” interprets a broad range of art, including global climate and physical surroundings, as well as environments of sound, interior design and architecture.

For more information on ArtsWeek 2010, go to www.artsweek.indiana.edu

February is American Heart Month

Green Sage Page — Mon, 01 Feb 2010 14:25:00 GMT

February is American Heart Month. Know the signs of a stroke or heart attack, while also learning the things you can do to keep yourself healthy: http://www.americanheart.org/presenter.jhtml?identifier=3053

Road Tested Briefcase Food for Better Health

Green Sage Page — Wed, 27 Jan 2010 13:58:00 GMT

Traveling can sometimes be a perilous journey for the health conscious consumer. In the Western world, where fast food lurks around every corner, the temptations abound. For those traveling out of the country, access to your favorite designer health foods may be tough. However, with a little pre-planning and savvy shopping, healthy snacking can be found right in your briefcase.

The first step in your traveling food journey is to review your itinerary. How long will you be gone and will you have access to the foods you commonly find helpful in your diet? If you are not in control of your own schedule and there is a lot of unpredictability, then you may want to pack a little extra protein to help stretch whatever meals are provided for the day. The last thing you want is to be caught in a moment where you can't perform at your best because you're hungry, tired and cranky. Taking "healthy" comfort food with you can provide the boost you need to get through a long day.

While dividing your own homemade foods into small Ziploc snack bags will save you money, considering purchasing pre-packed food when going through customs. This will alleviate any questions that the food contained in your briefcase or suitcase is exactly how it is labeled.

A few transportable winners I've tested are:

Emerald Natural Walnuts & Almonds 100 Calorie Pack - Small, light and good for you.
Quaker Weight Control Oatmeal packets - Fiber and protein that can be made with your hotel room coffee pot.
Odwalla Super Protein and Cliff Bars - I pack at least one for each day I will be gone and you can avoid the challenges of melting chocolate and icing found in other brands. Also light enough when traveling on two wheels.
Peaceful Planet, The Supreme Meal (1.2 oz) - Contains quinoa, millet amaranth and 17 grams of protein.
Dr. McDougall's soups - Each one comes in its own cup. Add hot water and enjoy. Bulky but worth it.
Justin's Organic Honey Peanut Butter Squeeze Pack (1.15oz) - These small packets have passed through an airport security scan more than once. Enjoy them with any healthy brand of mini packaged crackers. I suggest putting the peanut butter packets in your liquids bag to facilitate security clearance. Don't leave them floating around your briefcase.
Starbucks Via Ready Brew - Nirvana in the desert.

Have questions about traveling on a special diet? Send them to editor@greensagepage.com. Your question and the answer may be featured on our website.

Copyright Cheryl Hughey 2009

St. John's Parish Church - Barbados

Green Sage Page — Wed, 20 Jan 2010 21:31:00 GMT

Barbados Pic

Editor Dusty Miller — Mon, 18 Jan 2010 12:42:00 GMT

Simple Ideas for Entertaining Vegetarian Guests

Green Sage Page — Mon, 21 Dec 2009 17:48:00 GMT

Entertaining your vegetarian friends for the holidays need not be a perilous experience. With a few handy tips and cheats, you can be will on your way to presenting a celebratory affair that all will remember.

If you are unsure what type of vegetarian food your guest prefers, we encourage you to ask them. Given the opportunity, they may even offer to bring a dish, which will take some of the stress off your meal preparation. When in doubt...keep it simple. Please find hints below for each various course:

Drinks:
Just like your other friends, whether or not a vegetarian drinks alcohol depends on their spiritual and personal preferences. Be prepared to offer alternatives like hot tea and coffee.

Appetizers:
Light snacking need not be a complicated affair for non-meat eaters. Fresh vegetables are always a welcomed delight. When choosing a dip, stick to something light and natural that doesn't contain milk or eggs. (Vegans shy away from consuming anything animal-based.) A simple raspberry vinaigrette creates a colorful presentation and is deliciously healthy.

If you need something a bit more substantial, silken tofu can be mashed and mixed into a tasty eggless salad. Simply add in mustard, pickle relish, onion, salt, pepper and an eggless salad dressing like Nasoya for a delicious sandwich spread or thick dip for crackers.

Soups:
Choose a soup with a vegetable stock. Serving soup with made with meat bullion cubes can be considered a social faux pas.

Salad:
A liberal serving of salad is always a nice icebreaker. Show off your culinary prowess by serving your salad with a few choice legumes like kidney beans or garbanzos.

Dinner:
While there are many ready-made products on the market, most of what you will find in a conventional store like MorningStar contain eggs. Vegans and lacto-vegetarians do not eat eggs. You can avoid an uncomfortable situation by simply offering a marinara pasta dish with a few vegetables on the side. Simple to prepare, marinara is a wonderful alternative that other guests may enjoy as well. Note: Some pastas like ravioli contain eggs and/or milk products. Be sure to read your labels.

Dessert:
Most cakes, cookies and such contain egg products. Fresh fruit is always a delightful and welcomed surprise for your vegetarian friend. Fruit may sound simple but can actually be a compliment to your vegetarian guest when served with thoughtful insight. The holidays can be a rough time for vegetarians, as dietary trends tend to be heavy on the creme and meat products during the holidays. By ending your course with fruit, you've served a wonderful gift of compassion to your guest.

My Fairy Baby

Susan Frances — Fri, 18 Dec 2009 01:40:00 GMT

Looking for the perfect gift for your child, nephew, niece, grandchild, or godchild all year round? The website My Fairy Baby < www.myfairybaby.com > is ideal to suffice your need. The site provides darling prints of fairy babies along with fairy-themed calendars, birth announcement cards, photo albums, gift cards, and poetic dreamscapes for nurseries. The prints are made by a society of fairy artists that consists of Jacqueline Collen-Tarrolly, Jessica Galbreth, Carmen Keys, Amy Brown, Wendy Kathleen McElfish, Lisa Maissoneuve, Selina French, and Gina Marie. Using watercolors and acrylic paints for the prints, My Fairy Baby’s society are conscientious about using toxic-free art supplies and paper.

Their expertise at painting fairies in their natural habitat exhibits the mythical creatures in full bloom surrounded in floral motifs and cradled in earth-bound elements like seen in Carmen Keys' print “Ray Of Sunshine” and Amy Brown’s “Adoration” on the site.

"Ray Of Sunshine" by Carmen Keys

The site also offers personalized portraits of your child painted by Wendy Kathleen McElfish. Patrons send in a photo of their chil, and Wendy transforms their child into a flower fairy. Patrons can also purchase personalized prints with their name and/or their child’s name embossed on the print. This is available in variety of prints including “The First Love” print made by Wendy Kathleen McElfish and Selina French’s sketch entitled “Motherhood.”

"My First Love" by Wendy Kathleen McElfish

The society provides accessories such as announcement cards, yearly calendars, photo albums, and dreamscapes that can be hanged on bedroom walls. My Fairy Baby is an ideal site to find something special for children with gifts that they will remember forever.

Cheater's Vegan Pumpkin Spice Cupcakes

Green Sage Page — Fri, 04 Dec 2009 14:57:00 GMT

Do you want the smell of freshly baked cupcakes but hate all the work it takes to make them from scratch? We have a simple recipe that is kid-approved and quick to make. In no time at all, you'll be filling your home with the tempting smells of pumpkin and spice.

Cheater's Vegan Pumpkin Spice Cupcakes

Ingredients:
1 box of white cake mix
1 16-ounce can of pumpkin
1 cup of water
1/3 cup of vegetable oil
pumpkin pie spice
ginger
cupcake cup liners and pan

Preheat oven to 350 Fahrenheit. Mix cake mix, pumpkin, water and oil together. Add in spice to taste. Place individual cup liners in cupcake pan and pour batter into each one until about 1/3 inch from the top of each liner. Place in oven and bake until lightly golden.

Butternut Squash - Healthy Source Of Dietary Fibers

Susan Frances — Mon, 23 Nov 2009 05:44:00 GMT

Butternut squash is probably one of the most underused fruits in home kitchens, though it is an excellent source of potassium, vitamins A, C and B6 as well as dietary fiber. Most people believe butternut squash is a vegetable, but as a member of the gourd family which includes pumpkins, melons and cucumbers, butternut squash is technically a fruit because it contains seeds. It can be roasted, grilled, sautéed, pureed, or mashed and used to add flavor and texture to soups, quiches, pie fillings, casseroles, breads, and muffins.

The peak season to buy butternut squash is in the Fall. Choosing a good butternut squash is just as vital as picking a good melon. Look for an unblemished fruit that feels heavy for its size with a matte exterior rather than a glossy skin. A shiny surface indicates that the fruit was picked too early and the interior will taste bland rather nutty and sweet. Store whole butternut squash in a cool, dry place but not the refrigerator allowing for plenty of ventilation. It should keep for up to three months this way. If the squash is already cut, it will stay fresh for up to a week wrapped and stored in the crisper of the fridge.

Like other fruits, butternut squash can be eaten raw though most people prefer it cooked enabling the food to melt in their mouth The fruit is prepared by removing the skin, stalk and seeds. It should be cut lengthwise with the slices placed on a cookie sheet, sprayed with cooking oil and baked in the oven for about an hour at 375 degrees, or until the slices are soft enough to be pierced with a sharp knife. The pulp can also be cut into chunks and steamed or sautéed. Once cooked, the pulp can be mashed or pureed for soups or folded into a pasta or rice dish. Spices such as paprika, curry powder and marjoram add a zesty flavor to the butternut squash.

Growing butternut squash in one’s home garden is possible and enables the grower to control the conditions of the fruit‘s root system and progress. Plant the seeds for butternut squash in moderately rich soil in an area with full sun exposure and good circulation because the plant grows up to eight inches long. The plant needs regular water, fertilizers and mulch which helps the fruit to sustain an appropriate level of moisture. One caveat is that the fruit may rot if the soil is too moist for long periods of time. To minimize this problem, prop the plant up off the ground with bricks, pieces of wood or tiles so they are not in contact with very moist soil. Use care when doing this and don't break the vines or crack the stems. If that happens, you will lose the fruit.

Butternut squash grows best in warm soil. The seed should be sown up to 15 weeks before the first expected Fall frost. For instance, plant in June for September harvest. Plant seeds 1 to 2 inches (2.5 to 5 cm) deep in the soil and space seeds six inches apart from one another for breathing room. You can use row covers to protect young squash plants from cucumber beetles and bugs. Remove the covers when the plants begin to flower. If plants do develop mildew, spray the foliage thoroughly with a mild baking soda solution using 1 teaspoon of baking soda per quart of water.

Butternut squash grows in large quantities throughout America’s New England area, and harvested during the Fall. The fruit enriches the Thanksgiving table alongside the cooked cranberries and sweet potatoes. Whether sautéed, grilled, baked or mashed, butternut squash is a healthy addition to any diet and its taste is most satisfying

http://www.garden-helper.com/Learn/Plant_Pages/Squash.asp

Low Fat Drinks

Susan Frances — Mon, 16 Nov 2009 18:08:00 GMT

Sometimes the drinks that you make yourself can taste better than anything you will find on store shelves, and making the elixirs yourself enable you to control the amount of sugar and fat content that you consume. Some key ingredients for homemade drinks include water, vanilla extract, skim milk, low-fat yogurt, and freshly squeezed lemon and lime juice. Also, frozen concentrated drinks which are packaged in tin cans and sold in the freezer section of your local grocer contain much needed nutrients without the high content of sugar and high caloric additives that are found in sodas and fruit juices.

Here are two examples of low-fat, homemade drinks:

Lemon-Lime Coolata
1/3 cup of freshly squeezed lime juice
1/3 cup of freshly squeezed lemon juice
1     cup of plain, low-fat yogurt
1/3 cup of honey
2     cups of cold water
1    tablespoon of pure vanilla extract
1/3 cup of concentrated orange juice (optional)

Put these ingredients in a blender and mix until emulsified.

Low Fat Vanilla Shake
1 cup of peeled sliced banana
1 tablespoon of vanilla extract
1 cup of ice cubes
2 cups of skim milk
2 tablespoons of honey
1 8oz cup of plain, low-fat yogurt

Put these ingredients in a blender and mix until emulsified

Quick Dinner 3 - Vegan Crock-Pot Chili

Green Sage Page — Sat, 07 Nov 2009 19:43:00 GMT

This recipe is quick to put together but can be cooked slowly while you are at work, thus reducing your time in the kitchen when you return home. It is so easy that anyone can do it.

Vegan Crock-Pot Chili

Ingredients:

1 can pinto beans

1 can red beans

1 can dark red kidney beans

1 can fire roasted diced tomatoes w/garlic

1 can Original Rotel

1 medium onion

3 garlic gloves

½ large green bell pepper

1 tablespoon chili powder

½ teaspoon cumin

1 teaspoon sea salt

2 “Not-Chick’n” vegan bouillon cubes (may substitute other vegan bouillon)

1 tablespoon olive oil

1 can water

Dice onion, garlic and bell pepper. Heat up a non-stick pan and pour in olive oil. Add onion, garlic and bell pepper and cook until the onions are slightly golden and translucent. Pour mixture into crock pot and add all other ingredients. Use the empty can of tomatoes to measure out your water and pour into 4-quart crock-pot.

Follow your crock-pot directions and adjust time accordingly. Instructions for my Hamilton Beach Slow Cooker cite that if my crock-pot is on high, my chili should be ready in four hours. However, keep in mind that you are merely heating ingredients. Vegan cooking typically takes less time than cooking things that include meat. http://useandcares.hamiltonbeach.com/files/840174800.pdf (If you have lost your manual, you can easily find them on the web.)

Quick Dinner 2 - Black Bean Enchiladas (Vegetarian)

Green Sage Page — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 00:13:00 GMT

Part 2 of our Quick Dinner Series - "making healthy living easy"

Black Bean Enchiladas (Vegetarian)

Ingredients:
1 can of vegetarian black refried beans
1 can of non-meat broth enchilada sauce
1 package of corn tortillas
1/3 can of whole olives
Handful of queso fresco or any other cheese
2 tablespoons of water
Baking pan at least 9x9 in size (glass or stoneware preferred)

Lightly oil pan and set aside. Open can of refried beans and pour into bowl. Add water and stir until thick and creamy. Spread out corn tortillas on plate and microwave slightly (approx 30 seconds). Take one corn tortilla and place approx. 2 tablespoons of black beans in a horizontal line of approx 1-inch in diameter across corn tortilla. Roll tortilla like a cigar and place in pan. Repeat process until you use up all the black beans or run out of tortillas. (Helpful hint: Make sure all the rolled tortillas sit cozily next to one another. This will help keep them from opening up. If your tortillas crack after rolled, do not worry. Once the baking is finished, you will not be able to tell.)

Once all your tortillas are rolled, open up the can of enchilada sauce and pour over the top of the tortillas. Finish off by spreading out crumpled cheese and olives over the top of the sauce. Bake at 400 degrees Fahrenheit until bubbly.

Clean+Green Fights the Odor Wars (Product Review)

Green Sage Page — Tue, 03 Nov 2009 20:52:00 GMT

The Green Sage Page was recently sent a couple of products for review by Clean+Green. Sea Yu Enterprises, the parent company of Clean+Green, produces this line of environmentally and pet friendly products for odor control and stain removal. We tested the "Litter Box Odor Eliminator & Cleaner" and "Carpet & Upholstery Odor Eliminator, Cleaner & Stain Remover" for cats and dogs.

Being that the humans in the office are managed by two cats and two dogs, the Green Sage Page office was the perfect test site. Much to our surprise, the "Litter Box Eliminator & Cleaner" significantly reduced odors. Unlike the traditionally highly perfumed products on the market that simply mask bad odors, we were surprisingly pleased to learn that the Clean+Green products are odorless. Simply spray Clean+Green in the litter box and enjoy. This product is perfect for those days when you haven't had the time to clean the litter box and surprise guests arrive. It's also great for coating the bottom of a litter box during litter change. (We've previously used baking soda and found Clean+Green to be superior in reducing lingering odors that cling to the litter box.)

The "Carpet & Upholstery" cleaner did a fantastic job removing a previously difficult orange juice stain on the carpet. It took only a few seconds and just a little rubbing for the stubborn stain to be gone. We found the cleaner to be superior to another green carpet cleaner that we tried previously. We're also pleased that the cans do not contain harmful CFCs and are completely recyclable in our area.

For more information, please visit www.sea-yu.com

Rating: Clean+Green receives two green thumbs up.

Quick Dinner - Almost Homemade BBQ Seitan and Potatoes

Green Sage Page — Mon, 02 Nov 2009 21:24:00 GMT

Almost Homemade BBQ Seitan & Potatoes

Ingredients:

1 package of Westsoy Seitan (Ready-made)

2 whole potatoes sliced

1 small onion sliced

2 cloves garlic minced

1/3 bottle beer or equivalent veggie broth

BBQ Sauce

Olive Oil

Lightly oil 11X7 glass pan with olive oil. Layer onions and garlic in the bottom. Then, place seitan on the left and the potatoes on the right. Sprinkle seitan lightly with BBQ sauce. Gently pour beer in bottom of pan. Cover with foil and bake until potatoes are soft.

Serves Two

Halloween Decorations

Susan Frances — Thu, 22 Oct 2009 06:52:00 GMT

Halloween might be considered a holiday that is mostly celebrated by children now at days, but in fact, it has its roots in ancient cultures originating from Gaelic and Celtic-based rituals. Halloween, which was shortened from the term All Hallows Eve, also known as All Saints Day in Christianity, was derived from the Gaels annual festival Samhain, which marked the end of summer. The Gaels believed that the border between the world of the living and the land of the dead or Otherworld became thinnest on October 31st, the date of Samhain, which allowed spirits to pass through what folks dubbed the veil or wall which separates the two realms.

The custom of townsfolk dressing in disguises was a way to make the living look like the dead. Disguising the living as the dead was thought to trick the spirits who meant to harm the living. Thus, the living and the dead roamed the earth on Samhain without either one being able to tell each other apart. It would take a few centuries more before the tradition of trick-or-treating was adopted, coming into America in the mid-to-late 1800‘s from the families of Ireland and Scotland who settled in the new land and free to practice such pagan rituals. Costumes worn on Halloween have traditionally been the devil and his pitchfork, monsters, ghosts, goblins, witches, skeletons, mummies, and other figures with supernatural powers or scary themes.

Halloween’s iconic symbol has been the Jack-o-Lantern made from the orange turnip that is known as a pumpkin. Pumpkins become plentiful during the harvesting months of September and October, thereby making the pumpkin a vegetable that is easily accessible every October 31st along with apples of every breed. Townsfolk began carving out scary faces into pumpkins and placing them on windowsills as a way to frighten evil spirits from their homes. Families would put a light in their pumpkins so it would be illuminated through the night when the veil is thought to be the thinnest. The “lantern” part of the term comes from being illuminated like a lantern, and the Jack part is based on Irish folklore about a farmer named Jack who trapped the devil in a tree that he carved a cross into its trunk. In retaliation, the devil cursed Jack to wander the earth with his only light being a candle inserted into a hollowed turnip. The jack-o-lantern became a Halloween fetish used to frighten evil spirits the way garlic is believed to ward off vampires.

Halloween may have become more commercialized over the decades, but people have not diluted its origins and still celebrate All Saints Day as a way to honor the dead. Keeping with the holiday spirit, several websites are offering free templates for Halloween themed decorations like Hewlett-Packard and Halloween crafts from Disney‘s Kaboose. Here are some links to enhance your enjoyment of Halloween.

Templates for Halloween hanging decorations:
http://h30393.www3.hp.com/printing/app/us/en/hd_hall_tren-landing.aspx?jumpid=em_r11400_us/en/hho/IPG/ipg20_cpt_em_hpn_1694&hhosnl=hpn_1694|753742|124BB3B7B76BD931|211DA6D76E1E47342B9636EAA30C7591

Pumpkin Carving Templates:
http://h30393.www3.hp.com/printing/app/us/en/pt_hall_pumpkins_pages-landing.aspx?jumpid=em_r11400_us/en/hho/IPG/ipg20_cpt_em_hpn_1694&hhosnl=hpn_1694|753742|124BB3B7B76BD931|211DA6D76E1E47342B9636EAA30C7591

Templates for Halloween Costume Masks:
http://h30393.www3.hp.com/printing/app/us/en/ma_hall_masks_pages-landing.aspx?jumpid=em_r11400_us/en/hho/IPG/ipg20_cpt_em_hpn_1694&hhosnl=hpn_1694|753742|124BB3B7B76BD931|211DA6D76E1E47342B9636EAA30C7591

Templates for Halloween Party Banners:
http://h30393.www3.hp.com/printing/app/us/en/ban_hall_tren-landing.aspx?jumpid=em_r11400_us/en/hho/IPG/ipg20_cpt_em_hpn_1694&hhosnl=hpn_1694|753742|124BB3B7B76BD931|211DA6D76E1E47342B9636EAA30C7591

Halloween Crafts from Disney’s Kaboose:
http://www.marthastewart.com/photogallery/halloween-decorating

Flight of the Monarchs

Veronica Timpanelli — Tue, 06 Oct 2009 12:17:00 GMT

Monarch butterflies are a common summer sight in the northeastern United States. In late summer and early autumn country fields of goldenrod and other wildflowers come alive with the black and orange flutterers, drifting and diving among the flora. Amazingly, these swift and sensitive aerial acrobats’ flight speeds have been measured at up to 30 miles per hour.

They are also highly perceptive and super-aware.Caterpillars and butterflies can sense touch, taste, smell, sound, and light. Butterflies use their senses of sight, touch, hearing, smell, and taste to survive in the world, find food and mates, lay eggs in an appropriate place, migrate, and avoid hungry predators.

Setae (sensory hairs) on the butterfly’s entire body (including the antennae) can feel the environment. They also give the insect information about the wind while it is flying.

MIGRATION

In the autumn, avid butterfly watchers in the northeast can observe streams of monarchs moving in a southwesterly direction – migrating down to Central Mexico, to the Oyamel Forests. It is known that the monarchs east of the Great Lakes fly southwest, and in areas west of the Great Lakes, fly south-southwest, but their exact migratory path is still being plotted.

What is it that guides the monarchs and signals to them the appropriate time to begin their migration? Apparently, what the monarch butterflies sense is the changing amount of light present and the variability of day and nighttime temperatures. With the change of seasons comes the inevitable shortening of the days, longer nights, and also colder nighttime temperatures. When these characteristics show up, the monarchs leave for their over-wintering sites as much as thousands of miles away. It is thought that they either follow celestial cues such as the position of the sun, or the pull of the earth’s magnetic field to find their way to their over-wintering sites, but this is still being studied.

One study has recently discovered that the insects' antennae play a very important role in guiding the butterflies to their winter destination.

OVER-WINTERING

Unfortunately, the monarchs are becoming more and more vulnerable in their over-wintering sites in the high-altitude fir forests of the Transvolcanic Range of Mexico; only two of the eleven known roosting sites are well protected from logging. Continued development may mean that a winter may soon come when the monarchs no longer have a place to rest.

Once the butterflies reach their roosting site, they cluster in large numbers in the branches and trunks of the trees. While clustering they stay relatively still and maintain low metabolic rates. In mid-February, the monarchs at the roost sites become more active and mating behavior begins. By the end of February, some of the monarchs begin moving northward, and by mid-March the roost is usually depleted.

Forty to sixty percent of the monarchs die during their stay in Mexico. During the spring migration, the monarch butterflies return to their homes in Canada and the northern most parts of the United States. Along the way, they roost and reproduce, giving rise to new butterflies that will continue the spring flight back.

In Australia and New Zealand the Monarch is known as the Wanderer Butterfly. It is now believed that the butterfly has evolved to follow the pattern of the growth of its larvae's food source: milkweed.

LOSS OF HABITAT

The availability of milkweed, the host plant of the monarch, has also become a serious concern. In Canada, milkweed has been declared a noxious weed. This means that the plant is considered illegal and cannot be allowed to grow on private or public lands in Canada. Although not labeled noxious in the United States, farmers consider the plant a nuisance to crops and often use herbicides to control it along with other weeds. More and more roadsides are being planted in grass instead of being allowed to overgrow with wildflowers and weeds. The result is that butterflies have fewer places in the wild to find nectar and lay their eggs. The place the monarchs once knew to be a land full of milkweed and nectar is changing, and now offers them an uncertain future, at best.

No one really knows for sure what next year's migration will bring. Will the monarchs find the winter sanctuary they seek and will they return again, next spring? Will competition with the growing human population ultimately force them into extinction? Without milkweed, the butterflies will have lost their prime food source and sole breeding ground for future generations. Can they adapt and change along with the changing environment? It’s difficult to predict what will happen, but the current course doesn’t look too promising for the wayward wanderers. Only time will tell.